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Two points: 1) inflation seems rampant in the Land Of Dreams. 12,000gp reward is pig feed compared to 30,000hp tolls and 2000gp tavern rumors. 2) Wouldn't the emperess be executed by day 33? (±5 depending on calendar and bureaucracy). Shouldn't the trip take 12-14 days each way?
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Jun 2, 2018 22:13
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From what I've read of Mythender, tapping into the power of the gods is known to be bad and dangerous? There's no gotcha there.
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Jun 2, 2018 22:15
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Spire part 19 So, saw Grant Howitt at the UK Games Expo (and got lovely A3 posters of the high-res maps), and well, he's seen these posts which is a tad intimidating :-) Apparently you've all be buying loads of copies so that's cool. So now I feel pressured to buckle down and write the rest of these... (it's a pleasure, really) Anyway, with the talk of Mythender, isn't Religion and appropriate subject?  Districts and Factions of Religion So onto one of the most interesting chapters in Spire - after all, religion drives a hell of a lot of the conflicts in the city, and the Drow themselves are traditionally quite a religious people, albeit with two-thirds of the Danmou forbidden under the Aelfir. One note is that Divine magic in the setting is pretty wizardly in nature - it's less provided by the gods, more shaped and made 'safe', as opposed to Occult magic which doesn't have those filters (and can make your brain come out through your ears pretty easily as a consequence).  The six virtues can kind of be split between the three aspects - Our Glorious Lady, Limye, who embodies Tenacity and Community is still formally worshipped, and still sits at the heart of Drow life. Lombre, Our Hidden Mistress is who the Ministry worship, and her aspects are Grace and Sagacity. Lekole, Our Lady of Vengeance is followed only the the Crimson Vigil - now she's worshipped alone, her vengeance goes pretty much unchecked - as shown in the virtues of Vigilance and Fury. Enforcing the worship of only a third part of the triple goddess leaves much of dark elven society in a similar imbalance. The Cathedral of Our Glorious Lady is the crumbling, rambling center of Drow worship. Lacking funds or supplies, and part-domitory, part soup-kitchen, part temple, the priests struggle to keep worship going, whilst tending to the poor and the destitute of drow society. Much of the upkeep is achieved through salvage and outright theft from other temples, building sites by teamps of enterprising priests and worshippers. This has caused something of a security arms-race with nearby builders' merchants. The Ministry of Our Hidden Mistress This is, of course, the organisation to which most players will belong. Worshipping Lombre; the dark side of the moon, and plotting to return the Spire to its rightful rulers. They see the church of Limye as cowards, if not heretical traitors, whilst the church see the Ministry as an organisation that does more harm than good. Of course, both agree that the Crimson Vigil are a bunch of violent lunatics who just want to see the world burn... The Ministry itself follows a classic cell structure - each is overseen by a Magister; a senior figure in the cult, and often a retired Minister themselves - pretty much the only way to do so. Nobody really knows who run the whole thing, and rumours are rife as to who (if anyone) stands at the top, directing everything. At the other end, recruits are often spotted by a Magistrate (or occasionally volunteer themselves), and will be put through six challenges, each embodying one of the six Drow virtues. Once they pass those, the only way out is semi-retirement, or death - either at the hands of the Aelfir, or the Ministry themselves. Pilgrim's Walk Just inside the gates of the City proper, after passing through the docks, but below the Works is a place where gods and temples are stacked several layers high. It's a poor place, populated by pilgrims, beggers and priests, and it's pretty much in a state of constant low-grade warfare between priests and followers of countless minor deities. Some day the guard'll get the order to clear out the district, but until then it's knives in the allies, and chausibles and mitres at dawn.  The Solar Basilica In constrast the the crumbling glories of the Cathedral, the Solar Basilica is a glory in gold and white marble, where the Aelfir gods have been brought from their frozen homes in the far north to sit in state above the conquered city. Not just high elves worship here - the Solar Pantheon has followers amongst the humans and Drow as well. Solar Devotee Even a Minister might have some devotion to the Solar Pantheon, although it's rare, and will probably give them some grief down the line. Refresh by spending three hours in direct sunlight (although you don't have to have your skin exposed, which would be an issue for Drow). Low Grant the Father's vigour, healing you and your allies or the Mother's blessing on their weaponry. Medium Obtain the Brother's blessing, inflicting great stress in battle. High Invoke the Sister's fire against your foes, or the Mother's curse upon machines. The Pantheon themselves are Father Summer - growth, strength and health, Mother Winter - change, precision and mastery of the world, Sister Spring who grants fire, clarity, beauty and knowledge and Brother Autumn, also known as Brother Harvest or Scythe-Culls-the-Wheat in the Aelfir fashion. The actual Aelfir word they use to describe him could be translated as cruel, but in the High Elven sense, it's closer to "perfect". He's the god who knows nothing, but understands everything, and it's by his hand that all things die. It's Brother Autumn who the Paladins follow. The gold-armoured, well equipped militant arm of the Solar Basilica. They're perfectly swift and merciless, devoted to their idea of justice and bitter, bitter enemy of the Ministry above all others. Fortunately, their degree of training means they're few in number.  Next: The GM section!
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Jun 2, 2018 22:17
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The Paladins give me the sense of being the actual professionals and the surest sign that you have hosed up and should consider laying low or running for it when those guys start looking for you. Other Aelfir forces might not be as professional or serious, but those guys are where they stop kidding around.
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Jun 2, 2018 22:35
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EthanSteele posted:I think that's actually pitch perfect for Madoka. In show when they turn on each other and it escalates, one of them will die. It encourages the players not to escalate to actual fighting PVP unless its something they're willing to kill/die for, which is also extremely Madoka. Did we watch the same show? Magical girls directly fight each other in three episodes that I can think of (plus the third movie), and in only of those does one of them kill another. There's the further complication that they don't actually know how to kill each other until halfway through the series, even if they wanted to. I'd probably handle it with a two-tiered model: unless the initiator is specifically intending to kill from the outset, losing a PVP fight gets you taken out of the action for some amount of time by default (probably until after the next witch fight), and whoever loses can either take the loss or escalate to lethal force. Thuryl fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Jun 3, 2018 |
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Jun 2, 2018 23:33
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EthanSteele posted:I think its more that those are very popular examples that a lot of people will be aware of so they're easy touchstones rather than an honest review of what the author considers the best media of all time. I mean, they don't really share themes, setting elements, structure, or tone with Mythenders. But you're right, they do have high-powered fighting and people have watched them widely. Good enough!
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Jun 2, 2018 23:38
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I mean, they don't really share themes, setting elements, structure, or tone with Mythenders. But you're right, they do have high-powered fighting and people have watched them widely. Good enough! DBZ is an example of high powered fighting. That seems good enough to be listed as an example of high powered fighting which is what it is explicitly listed as? "an example of how to do a Mythending battle" That seems exactly good enough qualifications? As for not sharing themes, setting elements, structure or tone: Even at the most basic, juvenile and puerile and surface level (which is sort of the point I think? Wallowing in that? For better or worse) both 300 and Mythenders are high testosterone, ultra macho fight things where people do rad fights and have melodramatic speeches. Thinking about it Hulk vs the big alien whale thing in Avengers and Hulk vs Thor in Ragnarok are very Mythenders. Hulk's melodrama in general is pitch-perfect Mythenders. I'm not even saying its good. I'm just saying that misreading it and then going "oh yeah this is stupid" isn't brilliant. Thuryl posted:Did we watch the same show? Magical girls directly fight each other in three episodes that I can think of (plus the third movie), and in only of those does one of them kill another. So 33% of the time they kill each other? But yeah, you're right, I was mostly thinking of the overall deaths not just to each other. I believe there are out of combat drama rules that you could use for PVP where you're not trying to kill each other. EthanSteele fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Jun 3, 2018 |
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Jun 3, 2018 00:14
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EthanSteele posted:So 33% of the time they kill each other? But yeah, you're right, I was mostly thinking of the overall deaths not just to each other. I believe there are out of combat drama rules that you could use for PVP where you're not trying to kill each other. 25% of the time, if you count Rebellion. And the fights are all pretty important scenes with significant consequences, so you'd want some way to handle them within the mechanics, anyway.
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Jun 3, 2018 00:17
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Speleothing posted:Two points: 1. The adventure never heard of balancing or consistency 2. The whole mission is covert, hence my note that people should not blab about it.
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Jun 3, 2018 00:36
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EthanSteele posted:DBZ is an example of high powered fighting. That seems good enough to be listed as an example of high powered fighting which is what it is explicitly listed as? "an example of how to do a Mythending battle" That seems exactly good enough qualifications? Actually, I think it precisely serves as a kind of microcosm of the thematic cargo cult nature of Mythenders, where it feels like it's aping the Greek tragedies (or, very specifically, God of War) without actually using that as a character piece - the characters will fall not because of some internal fault, or because of cycles of rebellion and oppression, or because they become what they hate, but because some gods hit a magic switch that makes them flip teams once one team is eliminated (unless you get a perfect score). Moreover, since things like the impact on the world or most NPCs that aren't those being killed or killing is set dressing, anything you explore there is mostly just dicking around. So when it's like "Eh, just watch anything with exciting fights!" that, to me, speaks to the general kind of thematic shallowness behind the whole thing. (Also, man, I don't know if you could call DBZ "high-octane".) Mind, there's nothing wrong with something that's thematically, narratively, and descriptively shallow, but it'd need gameplay that I'd find more engaging, and it mostly feels like a really complicated dice game? It definitely has some neat ideas but it feels like the core is... really abstract in a way that it feels like Fate with way too many dice. Which I guess isn't too surprising coming from a guy who worked on both Fate and Pathfinder Mythic Adventures... Also something's been... bugging me about the logo, it seems... familiar.  Huh. Yeah. That is that font. That is exactly the font. That is the font he used.
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Jun 3, 2018 01:50
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Actually, I think it precisely serves as a kind of microcosm of the thematic cargo cult nature of Mythenders, where it feels like it's aping the Greek tragedies (or, very specifically, God of War) without actually using that as a character piece - the characters will fall not because of some internal fault, or because of cycles of rebellion and oppression, or because they become what they hate, but because some gods hit a magic switch that makes them flip teams once one team is eliminated (unless you get a perfect score). Moreover, since things like the impact on the world or most NPCs that aren't those being killed or killing is set dressing, anything you explore there is mostly just dicking around. Thank you! This is so much better for me than what some people have said that just come across to me as willfully misreading/misrepresenting what was written. And yeah! From what I can see Mythenders does exactly one thing, which is a dice trick based fighting minigame with everything else being windowdressing in service of driving the players to do that and do it in the most over the top way possible. If that mechanical game itself isn't engaging then it pretty much doesn't have anything else going for it beyond being a simpler(??) Exalted combat with the expectation of huge Stunt descriptions as the norm.
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Jun 3, 2018 03:01
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Alien Rope Burn posted:(Also, man, I don't know if you could call DBZ "high-octane".) Dragonball Super probably counts as High Octane because they really stepped up their game on fight production. But DBZ fights are usually just keyframes repeated over and over again.
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Jun 3, 2018 03:08
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For all its flaws, Exalted combat is much more interesting to me, and less abstract, than Mythenders dice game combat. Also? Not really more complex than Mythenders. At all.
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Jun 3, 2018 05:25
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Kurieg posted:Dragonball Super probably counts as High Octane because they really stepped up their game on fight production.
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Jun 3, 2018 05:50
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EthanSteele posted:If that mechanical game itself isn't engaging then it pretty much doesn't have anything else going for it beyond being a simpler(??) Exalted combat with the expectation of huge Stunt descriptions as the norm. It feels like it has the conundrum of being designed for one-shots but rewarding some degree of system mastery, as well. As for Exalted, it has the issue of having the huge charm listings to flip back and forth through and track, which was and is always its issue. But the core combat system isn't really any more complicated by itself.
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Jun 3, 2018 15:53
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Horrible Lurkbeast posted:1. The adventure never heard of balancing or consistency But the empress is already being threatened with execution? Unless you just weren’t clear earlier and it’s actually 1 month after anybody finds out it’s been stolen.
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Jun 3, 2018 19:39
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AmiYumi posted:Super also is at its core a series about becoming strong enough to defeat gods, assuming the mantle of gods, and finally replacing gods. It's a better fit than Z, at least. But that never happened.
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Jun 3, 2018 21:17
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MonsterEnvy posted:But that never happened.
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Jun 3, 2018 21:36
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Asura's Wrath (cutscenes) have always struck me as better at getting across the absolutely ludicrous power levels than something like DBZ. But you can't deny DBZ's place in pop culture. It's even influenced my own uber-power-god RPG project, if by giving me some ideas about what to avoid if nothing else. Biggest problem with Mythender is it seems to basically have zero stakes at all. There seems to be no support for anything but a running campaign of death-battles of ridiculous scale and intensity and in the end it doesn't seem like it actually makes a difference...Myths are bad, but there's no "you killed all the Myths!" option, there's just "you killed some Myths, now you're one!" or "You didn't figure out how to resolve this fight in 5 turns. Everyone is dead". Without the visual spectacle of things like anime or video games, the cartoonish levels of violence just ring hollow without any kind of goal or larger context beyond 'fight the next one'. You don't even seem to have much option to customize or personalize your characters, or keep ahold of them long enough to really get any kind of personal connection to them.
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Jun 3, 2018 22:31
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The only show or comic I've ever encountered that I think uses mythology well is Saint Seiya. It's too bad not many people in North America know about that comic. Imagine a bunch of prettyboys in impractical armor who serve Athena (whose avatar is a rich teenaged girl) by punching prettyboys in impractical golden armor. I was going to compare it to Sailor Moon, but it was released about seven years earlier.
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Jun 4, 2018 00:21
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Nessus posted:They never had some kind of weird mythenders finale but several characters reached the powers of gods, and one of them did sort of replace another god as well. There was also another character who was explicitly stronger than his universe's god of destruction. There were two people from that universe that were more powerful than their god of destruction. And Goku was (briefly) stronger than his before his body gave out from the strain. And we don't really have any idea where SSJ Rage, Beyond Blue, or Potential Unleashed fit on the power scale but SSJ Rage at least briefly inconvenienced Fused Zamasu before he turned into the universe. MightyMatilda posted:The only show or comic I've ever encountered that I think uses mythology well is Saint Seiya. It's too bad not many people in North America know about that comic. Imagine a bunch of prettyboys in impractical armor who serve Athena (whose avatar is a rich teenaged girl) by punching prettyboys in impractical golden armor. Yeah, Saint Seiya didn't get much traction in America, and I know my circle of friends at least kept confusing it with Ronin Warriors, which did.
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Jun 4, 2018 04:09
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My group finished making their PCs for Spire tonight. Thanks a lot for reviewing the game, LazyAngel. I would never have heard of it otherwise and my group is really excited to play.
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Jun 4, 2018 05:56
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Night10194 posted:Next Time: Realms of Sorcery! Or maybe Tome of Salvation. As your a fan of the fantasy stuff felt like posting that Cubicle 7 has posted a few previews for Fantasy Roleplay 4e http://cubicle7.co.uk/warhammer-fantasy-roleplay-fourth-edition-system-preview/ http://cubicle7.co.uk/warhammer-fantasy-roleplay-preview-combat/ They are fairly old but I did not see them get mentioned anywhere.
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Jun 4, 2018 06:27
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Kurieg posted:There were two people from that universe that were more powerful than their god of destruction. And Goku was (briefly) stronger than his before his body gave out from the strain. No only one was more powerful. The other was considered weak for one.
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Jun 4, 2018 06:37
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oriongates posted:Biggest problem with Mythender is it seems to basically have zero stakes at all. There seems to be no support for anything but a running campaign of death-battles of ridiculous scale and intensity and in the end it doesn't seem like it actually makes a difference...Myths are bad, but there's no "you killed all the Myths!" option, there's just "you killed some Myths, now you're one!" or "You didn't figure out how to resolve this fight in 5 turns. Everyone is dead".
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Jun 4, 2018 07:43
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Night10194 posted:My group finished making their PCs for Spire tonight. Thanks a lot for reviewing the game, LazyAngel. I would never have heard of it otherwise and my group is really excited to play. Excellent! That's precisely why I've been doing the reviews - to spread the word post-kickstarter. Only a couple more instalments to go though - hopefully will get the last actual section of the book up tonight.
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Jun 4, 2018 08:15
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Cultures: Africa Degenesis Rebirth Primal Punk Chapter 2: Cultures  Africa Majestic Majestic posted:Neolibyans walk the streets, a wave of fine fabrics, blue and green, embroidered with traditional patterns. Black skin glistens in the sunshine, there is a scent of jasmine and cedar wood. Laughter rises in the air, full of self-assurance and strength. Wherever they set foot they gild dusty alleys and live in solicitous hospitality. A wink, and promenades grow in sleepy towns, Purgan marble adorns market squares and manufacturers rise. Welcome to Africa! It's both very rich, in the vein of mythical Muslim states, and very traditional/spiritual just like any person who tells you about how true Sub-Saharan African villages insists they are. There's also a lot of stuff in the chapter that some chimpout-fearing, RaHoWa-preparing nutscase will swear would happened if you didn't stop the black people before it's too late.  In Euro-game, it's the male that has the impractical, chest revealing armor Time of the Crow So, how did Africa (great country) look in the years before Eschaton? Not that different from today, but worse, and it was not climate change's fault, either. 'Time of the Crow posted:Africa, however, had professionalized civil war until nothing remained from its ancient cultures but bleached bones and stream posts. International corporations rummaged through the continent in search of rare minerals and oil. In return, they gave the warlords weapons. The few stable African countries mined their borders and built barricades made of tanks and guns. Nairobi was like a fortress. So, how do you deal with the fact that your game wants to trade heavily in exotic back people opposing your Europeans, but real-life North Africa is very much an Arab-land? You hit them with a plague. A disease that rots a person from the inside, makes necrotic rashes appear on arms before spreading to chest and neck, and fatal within days started in Ivory Coast. Quite naturally, it turned out to be a “retrovirus resembling HIV, but it was resistant to existing treatment.” The internal WHO name for it was HIV-E, which became “Hive” in popular parlance. Not that it matters, anyway; the virus only exists to give reason for all the black Africans to surge north: first to escape the disease, then to look for the cure rumored to be developed in Europe. Oh, and there where theories that whitey actually created HIV-E. The Time of the Crow posted:Chaos and anarchy soared. 50% of the population suddenly seemed to carry a Kalashnikov. When a rumor spread that hundreds of thousands of shots with the cure had been dispensed to the military from ships on the Mediterranean coast, the people could not be held back. This was the tipping point that made Arabic Africa black. “Morocco, Algeria, Libya, and Egypt’s defenses could not cope with the rush and dodged the army of dispossessed jeeps, rusty transporters, and Russian machine guns” is a sentence I can still hardly parse. Of course, the cure turned out to be just a rumor. So, what did the Africans (wonderful people, great hosts) do next? They re-enacted Africa's most favorite novel, Camp of the Saints. Time of the Crows posted:A grotesque fleet of floating coffins, rafts, torn free bateau bridges, and overloaded cutters risked crossing the Mediterranean to demand a cure from Europe. Those who did not drown during the trek encountered a steel wall of fear and reluctance. European cruisers, frigates, torpedo boats, and destroyers formed a security cordon along the African coast and denied them passage. Corpses floated in the sea, and Europe sinned anew. Several things: *Just wow at the “grotesque” *I doubt that even a futuretech Europe would have any countries operating cruisers. *The last two words of the paragraph just reads like talk about the sinews of Europe. So, what happened when the exodus failed? People died, that's what. Hive ran its course, killing millions. But some regions and people were spared: many Libyans and Sudanese (probably from the black South), and explicitly Masai, were immune. The book states that someone might have eventually found the cure in “one of these tribal warriors' blood,” but Dhoruba happened. Dhoruba March 13th, 2073: Eschaton. Europe is hit the heaviest, but one rock carves a scar hundreds of miles wide in Central Africa: that's Dhoruba. The Lion Awakens After Hive burned itself out, survivors from groups like herders in the Atlas mountain, nomads holed up in oasises and the immune Masai started banding together. The Lion Awakens posted:Laughter had fled Africa, but the survivors found solace in their community and their faith. And they still had oil. Millions are dead, a piece of asteroid has struck the continent, but at least we have oil  As centuries passed, the rains from of Atlantic transformed the Sahara into a savanna while the coast was graced with verdant jungles. I dunno why that came to pass - and what stopped this transformation beforehand - but it did, and “the continent was reborn.” In place of the old Tripoli, Tripol arose as a legally distinct entity. The Arabs, the Berbers and the black Africans gathered there. Soon, a merchant only known as “The Libyan” started what would become the Neolibyan cult. This guy played Transport Tycoon in real life, linking settlements with truck routes and sending Scrappers to loot Europe. The Lion Awakens posted:The Africans had not much love for whites. They chased them away with a roar or gave their haggard children candied fruit. The old anger was carefully covered with a sugar coating of compassion. The white man seemed to pose no more danger. He was not a worthy foe.  Next time: JcDent gets probated for abuse
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Jun 4, 2018 08:21
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MIDDENARDE! So, the author, apparently being a moron glutton for punishment, has gifted me a free copy after releasing his RPG on DriveThru. Would there be interest in an attempt at a comparison review? Because he's pinged a few suggestions off me while doing the "revised" version, and it's mostly consisted of "take out the absurd fun parts, jam in some dumb parts, refuse critique."
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Jun 4, 2018 08:39
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PurpleXVI posted:MIDDENARDE! Has he at least given some kind of undertaking that even if you write things he doesn't like, he's not just gonna yell at you until you take it down again?
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Jun 4, 2018 09:11
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Yeah, writing criticism and then having to take it down cause the one who commissioned it doesn't feel like taking criticism sounds like a huge wasted effort.
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Jun 4, 2018 09:16
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Considering how the author of Middenarde is currently collecting "pats on the back" and "This looks interesting!" on reddit after posting about his game, I think a nice comparison review with some of the best points would be a great addition to the archive (and my personal copy of the middenarde review which I may or may not have saved offline for future amusement about 15th century english bird lords rolling hills and wizards...)
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Jun 4, 2018 11:38
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JcDent posted:As centuries passed, the rains from of Atlantic transformed the Sahara into a savanna while the coast was graced with verdant jungles. I dunno why that came to pass - and what stopped this transformation beforehand - but it did, and “the continent was reborn.” 
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Jun 4, 2018 14:21
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and Degenesis falls headlong into all the loving awful 'the africans are gonna take over' fearmongering it's been building up to.  The art is actually really loving good, especially for the women, but the incomphrensible lay out and the racism kills it.
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Jun 4, 2018 15:14
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They really did not go half measures on the racism, did they? I should probably have more to say about it but the whole thing is just achingly unpleasant. It's not a surprise, but it's a shame.
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Jun 4, 2018 15:19
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I don't think it's genuine, active racism. As you see, they keep laying bad poo poo at the feet of Europeans: pillaging Africa before the Eschaton, sinking the Hive refugees, Spain going in to loot the place just as it was rebuilding. I think the authors were just looking for justification as to why the Africans are such douches to whites in the game, and they implemented it in the most hamfisted way. So, you know, just like everything else to do with Africa in the game. I doubt the Germans are well aware of the racist scaremongering that's bread and butter of the Stormfront folk. I know about that stuff because I'm extremely online; they might not be. Can't speak for Germany, but the racists there are probably more concerned with MidEast/Muslim immigrants than black people. With Germany never really having had colonial holdings that would produce a bunch of former colonials that speak German and want some of that gay socialism pie in Europe (unlike France and UK), the racists have little reason to fear them above other groups. At least that's what I think as a generic Euro, maybe we have thread Germans that are more knowledgeable.
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Jun 4, 2018 15:28
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JcDent posted:I don't think it's genuine, active racism. As opposed to, what, false, passive racism? also jesus gently caress do you really think Germans are unfamiliar with Nazi-strain racism really really
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Jun 4, 2018 15:29
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Idk, how do you call it when you donxt consider yourself racist, but still engage in some of the racist mores without malicious intent? Pre-woke? E: from my experience on 4chan, legit black fearing racists would write Africans as attacking Europe just cuz, and wouldn't give them a fairly prosperous, well organized state. In Degensis, the Africans have their poo poo together a lot better than Europeans (though the reason is kinda stupid Psychovores), are only invading Hybrispania because those dudes were assholes, and have scary, cool warriors in the shape of Scourgers. I think they genuinely wanted to have Africa present in the game, but they were stupid about it, and the end result reflects some unconscious biases. JcDent fucked around with this message at 15:37 on Jun 4, 2018 |
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Jun 4, 2018 15:31
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JcDent posted:Idk, how do you call it when you donxt consider yourself racist, but still engage in some of the racist mores whatever? Pre-woke? "racism"
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Jun 4, 2018 15:31
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Thuryl posted:Has he at least given some kind of undertaking that even if you write things he doesn't like, he's not just gonna yell at you until you take it down again? He's a jackass and he can threaten to sue me all he wants for "libeling his trademark." He didn't even notice that I'd already crossposted it to another site alongside the SA review. Admittedly another site where it's limited to worse formatting but that doesn't really change the fact that I'm calling his game garbage. So, let's get back to it with... Middenarde  So, what's changed? At least there's slightly nicer formatting now. The art is mostly still the same(though now supplemented with some more art by a worse artist), but every page has a generic-but-not-offensive brown parchment background, which makes the whole thing look a bit less like someone edited it in MS Word. It's also been rendered... somewhat less fun. Remember the Knacks? The only thing we could all have a laugh at and imagine playing and have some fun with? Completely erased. Completely and utterly erased. The intro's also been changed to be slightly less fascinated with how you're going to die face-down in the mud and suffering from the pox. Middenarde posted:The fantasy aspect comes into play because the game assumes that all the supernatural elements believed to be real during that time period were, within reason, actually existent. However, because we know that these magical forces did not significantly impact the course of history, they must necessarily be reclusive and rare, difficult to find and harder to master. Therefore, Middenarde is designed so that magic is something that requires significant investment and has limits on its power and availability. The mythical creatures in Middenarde are uncommon and shy away from civilization, found mainly in the untamed and unexplored wilderness, where there be dragons. The author's still an insufferable jerkoff about it, though. There's also the addition that now, apparently, the GM is supposed to quiz the players about what their characters had for lunch and when they last had something to drink. And if they lack a satisfactory answer, they're to be penalized for it. And even if you do have a good answer, you might be stuck with vaguely defined malnutrition penalties. Great, isn't it? Middenarde posted:To separate living things from inanimate objects, living things have Vitality Points (representing their wellness and ability to function), and objects have Health Points (representing their structural integrity). And stuff like this. Who cares if the door loses Hit Points or Wood Points when you bash away at it with an axe? They're loving not-broken-to-pieces points in either case! Speaking of broken stuff, weapon and armour repair are slightly less poo poo now? In that items aren't guaranteed to lose any quality levels unless completely shattered and needing to be fixed from broken shards. I mean, weapon and armor durability and repair in a PnP RPG is still terrible loving bookkeeping, but it could be worse.  This is some of the new art. Look at those hideous borders. You know what else he decided to add, though? Between-chapters fiction. With, uh, what's it called when someone writes out an accent, like leaving out someone's h's and stuff? It's got that thing. It hurts to read. Middenarde posted:“Y’can’t read or write, ya daft yaldson. Scribbling’s all you’d do. It hasn’t got any pictures. Right now all it’s got going for it is a sarding lout keeping me from reading it.” His companion twists his body away from the campfire, holding the parchment up and squinting at it. “If the coistrel in Birming’am who sold it to us was worth his salt, it’s ‘round here somewhere.We’ll find it in the morning. I’m just trying to figure out what we’ll have to go through once we do. If I was some eccentric wealthy fop, not sarding likely I would just leave all my treasure lying about for anyone to grab.” He sighs, his one remaining arm dropping into his lap with a flutter of parchment and the dull thud of leather on chainmail. “Can’t make anything interesting out. Just some poem about bones. Bloody useless.” Not to mention that while the vocabulary may be period-appropriate, it just reads like the author tried to jam in as many archaic words to remind us that HEY GUYS, IT'S YE OLDEN TIMES!!!!! And I like how in this Realistic-But-Not-Really RPG, the guy still has time to rant out like half a paragraph of curses and complaints while choking on his own blood and being stabbed repeatedly to death by a skeleton warrior. Next up is the setting overview, which sucks a bit less now. But still goes off into armchair-psychology tangents about how people accused the poor, the weird and those with Down's of being witches because of their own subconscious guilt over not helping them. There's still the goddamn entire weird dickshoes sidebar, however, which is either a bonus or a negative depending on how you view it.  Great addition to the art, man. There are more changes, of course, but because of how long it's been since the original review, it's taking me some time to compare and contrast, because I have to keep checking that I'm not misremembering anything. Here's the great part, though, the magic system has been revamped. So look forward to THAT.
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Jun 4, 2018 15:46
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Dumb ye olde language shouldn't be used unless it's some dude trying to be all cool and old in a modern setting that ends up looking like a joke.
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Jun 4, 2018 15:51
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